Derrylin Boxing Club’s season has started to gather momentum with the club hosting its first tournament of the season in the Equinox Centre last Saturday night. The club had ten boxers involved in twelve of the contests, starting with youngsters Brandon Cassidy and Kaci Crowley demonstrating their skills in exhibition contests against opponents from Ballinamore Boxing Club.

The club scored four good wins from the eight competitive matches and appeared very unfortunate not to get the decision in at least two of the other contests.

Derrylin Boxing Club coach Sean Crowley commented: “All our boxers, whether they got their hand raised or not, did extremely well and did themselves proud. It was great for our seasoned boxers Andrew Ferguson, Anthony Malanaphy and Hanlon Crowley to open their new campaign with good wins. Despite the notable ring rust they all boxed very well.

“The crowd were very disappointed with the Copeland decision and rightly so. But on the positive side it was a great performance by young Ryan, as his opponent was a real step up in class and is a boxer who beaten several of the current Irish champions so that performance bodes well for the future.” Harris Crowley got the club off to a winning start by out-working the slick Shane Stokes (St Seachnalls Boxing Club).

Aaron Burns and Ethan McManus were both involved in good close matches against Padraig Conway (French Park) and Mark Stringer (Ballinamore) respectively. Both visitors got the nod from the judges but many felt McManus did enough to deserve the decision.

Hanlon Crowley got the club back to winning ways with a hard fought points win over Patrick Donohue (Golden Cobra). The Dubliner southpaw was gritty and determined but Crowley landed with the cleaner shot to edge all three sessions.

There was disappointment with the verdict in the next contest as Ryan Copeland applied constant pressure against Tommy Stokes (St Seachnalls BC) and out-worked his opponent in all three rounds. However, the judges were split favouring the defensive work of the Meath boxer.

Andrew Ferguson in his first contest of the season got his campaign of to a winning start with a good win over Lawrence McCarthy (Clones BC). The contest was extremely close with both boxers having success and the decision could have gone either way but this time the verdict was in favour of the home favourite.

Derrylin’s Joe Gannon had a torrid time with John Donohue (Golden Cobra), the Dubliner applied constant pressure and worked the body well but Gannon fought back gamely and scored with some solid right-crosses throughout but the decision deservedly went in favour of the visitor.

The final contest of the evening paired two former All-Ireland championship semi-finalists against each other with the host’s Anthony Malanaphy taking on John Stokes (St Seachnalls BC). The contest pitted two very talented counter-punching boxers but it was Malanaphy who was able to outsmart his opponent by making him lead-off before scoring with good counters.

All three rounds were very competitive with both combatants landing good shots, but Malanaphy landed with more shots in each session to collect a clear points victory.

Derrylin Boxing Club advised that the busy schedule continues as they have a team of four boxers travelling to Romford in Essex this week. “All four lads have very tough matches ahead of them so they’ll really have to raise their game to earn victory but were confident we’ll nick a win or two.” Crowley added.